Is­rael car­ried out a se­ries of mas­sive airstrikes overnight, hit­ting sub­urbs of Beirut and cut­ting off the main bor­der cross­ing be­tween Lebanon and Syr­ia for tens of thou­sands of peo­ple flee­ing Is­raeli bom­bard­ment.

The blasts in Beirut’s south­ern sub­urbs sent huge plumes of smoke and flames in­to the night sky and shook build­ings kilo­me­tres (miles) away in the Lebanese cap­i­tal. The Is­raeli mil­i­tary did not im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment on what the in­tend­ed tar­get was, and there was no in­for­ma­tion im­me­di­ate­ly avail­able on ca­su­al­ties. Lebanon’s state-run Na­tion­al News Agency re­port­ed there were more than 10 con­sec­u­tive airstrikes in the area.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said Fri­day that a strike in Beirut the day be­fore killed Mo­hammed Rashid Skafi, the head of Hezbol­lah’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions di­vi­sion. The mil­i­tary said in a state­ment that Skafi was “a se­nior Hezbol­lah ter­ror­ist who was re­spon­si­ble for the com­mu­ni­ca­tions unit since 2000” and was “close­ly af­fil­i­at­ed” with high-up Hezbol­lah of­fi­cials.

Thurs­day’s strike along the Lebanon-Syr­ia bor­der, about 50 kilo­me­tres (30 miles) east of Beirut, led to the clo­sure of the road near the busy Mas­naa Bor­der Cross­ing.

Is­rael said it had tar­get­ed the cross­ing be­cause it was be­ing used by Hezbol­lah to trans­port mil­i­tary equip­ment across the bor­der. It said fight­er jets had struck a tun­nel used it to smug­gle weapons from Iran and oth­er prox­ies in­to Lebanon.

Hezbol­lah is be­lieved to have re­ceived much of its weapon­ry from Iran via Syr­ia. The group has a pres­ence on both sides of the bor­der, a re­gion where it has been fight­ing along­side Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Bashar As­sad’s forces.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press video footage showed two huge craters on each side of the road. Peo­ple dis­em­barked cars un­able to pass the site of the strike, car­ry­ing bags of their pos­ses­sions as they crossed on foot.

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple flee­ing war in Lebanon have crossed in­to Syr­ia over the past two weeks there.

The new wave of strikes came af­ter Is­rael warned peo­ple to evac­u­ate com­mu­ni­ties in south­ern Lebanon, in­clud­ing but al­so be­yond an area that the Unit­ed Na­tions de­clared a buffer zone af­ter Is­rael and Hezbol­lah fought a month­long war in 2006.

Is­rael launched a ground in­cur­sion in­to Lebanon on Tues­day and its forces have been clash­ing with Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants in a nar­row strip along the bor­der. A se­ries of at­tacks be­fore the in­cur­sion killed some of the group’s key mem­bers, in­clud­ing long­time leader Has­san Nas­ral­lah.

Iran’s For­eign Min­is­ter, Ab­bas Araghchi, ar­rived Fri­day in Beirut, where he was ex­pect­ed to dis­cuss the war be­tween Is­rael and Hezbol­lah with Lebanese of­fi­cials.

Araghchi’s vis­it to Beirut came three days af­ter Iran launched at least 180 mis­siles in­to Is­rael, the lat­est in a se­ries of rapid­ly es­ca­lat­ing at­tacks that threat­en to push the Mid­dle East clos­er to a re­gion­wide war.

Iran is Hezbol­lah’s main backer and has sent weapons and bil­lions of dol­lars to the group over the years.

In the Iran­ian cap­i­tal, Tehran, the coun­try’s Supreme Leader Ay­a­tol­lah Ali Khamenei led Fri­day prayers and de­liv­ered a speech where he praised the coun­try’s re­cent mis­sile strike on Is­rael and said Iran was pre­pared to con­duct more strikes if need­ed.

He spoke to thou­sands of peo­ple at the cap­i­tal’s main prayer site, the Mos­al­la mosque, which was dec­o­rat­ed with a huge Pales­tin­ian flag.

Fri­day’s strike at the bor­der cross­ing was the first time this ma­jor bor­der cross­ing has been cut since the be­gin­ning of the war. Lebanese Gen­er­al Se­cu­ri­ty record­ed 256,614 Syr­i­an cit­i­zens and 82,264 Lebanese cit­i­zens cross­ing in­to Syr­i­an ter­ri­to­ry be­tween Sept. 23 — when the Is­rael launched a heavy bom­bard­ment of south­ern and east­ern Lebanon — and Sept. 30.

There are half a dozen bor­der cross­ings be­tween the two coun­tries and most of them re­main open. Lebanon’s min­is­ter of pub­lic works said all bor­der cross­ings be­tween Lebanon and Syr­ia work un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the state.

Is­rael and Hezbol­lah have trad­ed fire across Lebanon’s south­ern bor­der al­most dai­ly since the day af­ter Hamas’ cross-bor­der at­tack on Oct. 7, 2023, in which the mil­i­tants killed 1,200 Is­raelis and took 250 oth­ers hostage.

Mean­while, the Is­raeli army said it car­ried out a strike Thurs­day in Tulka­rem, a mil­i­tant strong­hold in the oc­cu­pied West Bank, in co­or­di­na­tion with the Shin Bet in­ter­nal se­cu­ri­ty ser­vice.

The Pales­tin­ian Health Min­istry said 18 peo­ple were killed in an Is­raeli strike on a refugee camp there.

Vi­o­lence has flared across the Is­raeli-oc­cu­pied ter­ri­to­ry since the Is­rael-Hamas war erupt­ed in Oc­to­ber 2023. Tulka­rem and oth­er north­ern cities have seen some of the worst vi­o­lence.

Is­rael de­clared war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip in re­sponse to their Oct. 7 at­tack. More than 41,000 Pales­tini­ans have since been killed in the ter­ri­to­ry, and just over half the dead have been women and chil­dren, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal health of­fi­cials. Near­ly 2,000 peo­ple have been killed in Lebanon in that time, most of them since Sept. 23, ac­cord­ing to the Lebanese Health Min­istry.

BEIRUT (AP) —